Hot Summer Night
by Mickleditch
Summary: Arkham swelters under a heatwave. Matters between Dan and Herbert reach fever pitch. (H x D)


Disclaimer: All characters borrowed from Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna, and the works of H P Lovecraft.

* * *

Dan had never really started an argument with Herbert before. They'd been snippy - yelled at each other - on a semi-regular basis in the past, usually due to clashes borne out of frustration on Herbert's part or exasperation on Dan's, but it had always been a short-lived spat that blew over pretty quickly once Herbert was sufficiently distracted by a new line of research.

Dan considered himself a peaceable person by nature, and a serious falling out with the man who, on top of everything else, he had to somehow go on living with, wasn't something that he would have gotten his teeth into at any other time. Maybe it was the heat, eastern Massachusetts baking in the nineties, fifteen days and counting. The ground burned to the point of blistering if you were stupid enough to stand barefoot. It was like living in an oven; feeling heat, breathing heat, walking around with your clothes stuck to you like cellophane. This heatwave was stronger than any that Dan could remember. Everyone was tired, and moody as hell. Darkness fell, and it made no difference when there was no air moving. Your sheets were hot, and the sweat from your body made it unbearable. The ancient window unit in Dan's bedroom clanked its way pointlessly through the night as it labored to lower the temperature by even a few degrees.

Herbert's room lacked even this small mercy, and, as such, he had taken up near-permanent residence in the lab. Dan sometimes thought that he always slept more there than he did in his bed, however much it was that he did actually sleep. The cellar was the cooler area, but you paid for that with the smothering wet blanket that you descended into, the air like vapor. Dan had brought in a dehumidifier, but it had broken down, and you could see the droplets of water on the eighteen inch stone walls. It was no more preferable to the acrid stink of sweat that seemed to permeate the rest of the house. Everywhere Dan went, he felt nauseous. He couldn't remember what it was like to sleep properly.

So maybe it was the heat and the lack of sleep, or maybe it was their general level of irk with each other. They'd been bickering for days. Either way, _this_ put Dan's back way up. He'd been about to head off to the bedroom, to try to rest his eyes for a while and dream about the storms that the Boston/Norton weather service kept vainly promising, but Herbert's last shot had stopped him in his tracks. He turned.

"You think I should have done _what?"_

Herbert looked over his shoulder. His one acknowledged concession to the heat had been to loosen his tie, but a dark, blurred 'v' stood out on the back of his shirt where the sweat had soaked through. "I _said,"_ he repeated, in a sharper tone, "that you should have found a way to get her out of the hospital. You should have brought her back to the house. If Hill had killed me, you could have gone on. You have access to all of my notes, the formula for my re-agent -"

"Are you actually suggesting that we -" Dan stopped, correcting himself. "- No, that _I_ should have kept Meg for _parts?_ Used her for research? Do you seriously think I could have done that? Even if I'd known that you were still alive?"

"We can't waste specimens, Dan! The fresh ones are too hard to come by!"

"Meg wasn't a _specimen!"_

Herbert scraped his pen, and then dropped it with a loud clatter. "I assure you that she was exactly that to the pathologist who performed the autopsy! And what else would we have carried out but an autopsy, an autopsy of our own? How would it be any different?"

"Meg was still a patient at the hospital! To you, she'd have just been another source of dead tissue."

"And all those primitive _specialists_ at the hospital could do was to determine the final cause of death of that tissue! Our work will discover the secret of preserving life!"

"Drop it, Herbert! I'm not in the damned mood. I know you didn't care about Meg."

Herbert glared at him, his eyes looming large behind the steel rims of his glasses. His chair squeaked viciously on the concrete slab floor as he rose to his feet. He was spoiling for a fight, just as much as Dan was. This had been smoldering for days. "And did your caring bring her back? Or any of the patients that you've lost? Or will it be my research that brings them back?"

"All your research has ever brought back is monsters! Animals! People in pain! Why don't you admit it? The re-agent doesn't work, not like it's supposed to. You can't do it!"

"My re-agent has its limitations now -"

"I think _limitations_ is an understatement!"

"- limitations," Herbert went on, "that I will overcome. And _could_ have overcome, if you hadn't been willing to waste valuable test subjects due to your own emotions!"

They'd had this kind of exchange before. Dan, primarily the doctor and Herbert, first and foremost the scientist. Despite how they butted heads over the subject, Dan had to admit that it usually resulted in some worthwhile ethical, even philosophical, discussions. But, tonight, Herbert had crossed some invisible line that Dan hadn't even been aware that he held to. Maybe another day, and in a better frame of mind, he might still have passively let it go. But he was so, so hot, and the heat just kept stoking his anger. If there was going to be a storm anywhere tonight, he thought, it was going to come from inside of him. It was that kind of pressure, like something ballooning and waiting to give. He was aware that he was shaking his head, slowly.

"Well, I guess that would be incomprehensible to you, because I don't think you have any emotions. Except for being mad when you fail. Answer me a question, Herbert - have you ever really felt anything? For anybody?"

"Perhaps I should remind you, Dan, that I've always been the one trying to extend human life!"

"I don't know if I'm sure anymore _why_ you're trying to do it. Is it because you're really bothered by people dying? Or is it just because you can't stand the idea that death can get the better of you?"

Herbert emitted a derisive snort. "Is this the topic? My motivations? That was always much more of a concern to you than our achievements, wasn't it?"

Dan stared at him. "I think it needs to be a concern. I don't see any evidence that you see people as anything more than experiments; something you can use as a means to an end. Sometimes I think all I've ever been is something to use."

"I assume that you're suffering from a lack of female company again."

"And what the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"That it's probably the underlying reason for your concern with my appreciation of you. Or lack of, as you seem to perceive it."

"No, the reason is that I'm starting to feel enough like crap already this week without you taking your own shitty mood out on me and bitching about how I didn't use my dead fiancee as a lab rat."

The twin spots of color that had flared in Herbert's cheeks were all the more noticeable against features that usually had such a pallor that they seemed to emit a kind of deathly light. He was standing closer to Dan now, and Dan could feel the heat radiating from his body and smell the tang of mingled sweat and deodorant and the throat-grab of formaldehyde. "And your obsession with my personal agenda is starting to _piss me off!"_

Dan gave a short bark of unpleasant laughter. Herbert's brow went down so hard that it threatened to form a perfect vertical line on his face. His voice rose from a growl to an answering yell. "Fine! If you're so convinced that you're being _used_, leave! Tonight! Why don't you?"

"You're never going to understand, are you? The reason I haven't left, a long time ago, is because I'm human! I have human feelings. Human relationships. And if you still, really, don't understand why I haven't gone, maybe it means that I should have. Maybe I've just been wasting my time here!"

"How can you say that all our work has been wasted time? What we've achieved here -"

"It's not about the results, Herbert! It never has been!"

"Then what _is_ it about, Dan?"

"I thought we were friends!" Dan shouted. In the enclosed space, his voice rang a little in his own ears, subtly mocking him. "Yeah," he finished, harshly, "I was dumb enough to think that! I was dumb enough for it to matter."

Herbert swept his arm in a wide arc, a wild gesture that took in the lab in its entirety; the gauze-covered specimens, the trays of detached and isolated organs hungrily soaking up blood, and the pervading stew of pungent, musty mold and the meat/shit of putrescine and cadaverine. "Would I have risked all this with someone I didn't trust? With anyone else - anyone but my partner?"

"There's a difference between a friend and a fucking accomplice, Herbert! I just don't think you understand what it is."

"I gave you this opportunity! The greatest opportunity in history! I gave you the key to life itself -" Herbert's words choked off, and the muscles of his neck tightened to cords. His hair was matted with sweat, which had begun to trickle in beads across his temples. He glanced down at a covered bucket beside his feet, from which the stink of organic decay was almost palpable, and, for the first time that Dan could ever remember seeing, he looked green. Making a sudden lurch past Dan, he bolted for the stairs.

Dan followed him. He didn't know if Herbert had wanted to be followed, but he was past worrying about it.

He found the other man outside, in the porch alcove, drawing in great gasping lungfuls of air. It was still ungodly hot, even at almost midnight, the breezeless dark breathing heat and damp down upon them. The air itself seemed ready to combust. It smelled ominous, heavy with salt; the sea stink that sometimes came up the river from Kingsport on summer nights. As Dan watched, Herbert bent double at the waist, and coughed. There was no clear evidence that he had actually thrown up, but Dan could see the clammy sheen on his cheekbones. His own eyes stung from the sweat dripping down his forehead.

"Are you okay?" he asked, flatly.

"I thought you were leaving."

Dan felt the anger instantly start to build again, peeling back the wounds afresh. "I'm not going to leave!"

"Why? You obviously don't consider that I've got anything worthwhile to give you."

"Have you ever thought about what I've got to give _you?_ What I _want_ to give you, if you'd meet me even halfway?"

"I've always been willing to listen to your ideas! Don't try to make out that you haven't been involved!"

"Fuck the ideas!" Dan grated out. He took a step closer. The walls shifted with deep shadows and bright slivers of sickly moon where it rolled between the clouds. The humidity was unbearable. It made your clothes damp in minutes; stuck them to your skin. Although he hadn't washed his hair, it was drenched.

"Then maybe you could tell me what you _do_ mean!"

Dan slammed his hand against the porch, trapping Herbert between his arm and the wall of the house. "Fuck being told. You don't get it when you're told. Would you even get it if you were shown?"

The fingers of Herbert's right hand shot up to grab Dan's outstretched arm, his blunt nails digging into the skin. He was strong in relation to how little meat he had on him, but Dan pried the fingers up one at a time, got them all loose, and snatched hold of his wrist. Herbert regarded him through narrowed eyes. The eye, at least, that wasn't hidden by the shadow striping his face was narrowed and glaring.

"What the hell are you doing? Let go of me!"

"Not until you've answered my question." Grabbing Herbert's other wrist, Dan shoved him. Getting him up flush against the wall. "Do you feel anything with me, Herbert? Any connection at all? Or do you just look at me and see another collection of parts?"

He punctuated the word _parts_ with another push. He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing. Dan debated whether or not he was only imagining that Herbert's breaths were beginning to sound shorter and faster, but that wasn't really very important. What was important was that he was determined to get some kind of response out of his roommate tonight. The sky was a huge dark mantle now, nothing but the wet, sultry mouth of night. And then, the first faint rumble of thunder. Somewhere south, further towards the coast, but it was coming.

"What exactly do you want me to feel?" Herbert spat the words up at him.

"I want you to feel like a goddamned human being!"

"And what would that entail? To you?"

"How about this? Just touching someone. Simple touch, without a clamp or a scalpel or a needle."

"Do you need me to hold your hand, Dan?" Herbert said, but the bitter sarcasm in his voice was blunted by the fact that not only was he now definitely breathing more heavily, but in the intervals between his struggles, Dan could feel him trembling. Furthermore, he found himself liking the fact. He was starting to feel as if he'd reached some kind of snapping point.

When he looked down, he thought he saw the flicker of lightning, but the lightning was in Herbert's eyes.

"Maybe I do," he said. "And the way you're shaking, I'm starting to wonder if you need it more than you think."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Herbert again tried to wrench his wrists away. In return, Dan shoved him harder against the wall, so that they were almost breathing into each other. Another rumble of thunder sounded. There was still a chance that any storm would roll right on by, but the wind said otherwise. It whistled faintly in the trees as it picked up, the leaves at the far ends of the branches beginning to flap.

"Ridiculous? This is ridiculous. This is fucking ridiculous, that I can't get you to either say, *Dan, I give a shit about you,* or try and take a swing at me."

"Get the _fuck_ off of me," Herbert hissed.

Dan shook his head: _no_. The sweat was running down his back, and he could smell it rising off both their bodies. He felt too tight in his skin. He looked down at Herbert, glaring up at him, angry and defiant and very alive, and suddenly it was a much different kind of reaction that he wanted. Something the polar opposite of Meg's sweetness and pliancy, something as hard and fierce as he felt himself. An erection pushed against the seam of Dan's jeans.

At that moment, he was only fully aware of one thing: that Herbert's mouth was wet and only inches away from his, and he kissed it.

Herbert froze, completely. Slowly, Dan released his hold on his wrists, and instead brought his hands down to cradle his skull. Herbert's crotch was tight against Dan's thigh, and it was very obvious that Dan was not the only one aroused. He leaned forward and pressed their lips together a second time, thrusting against Herbert's belly as the other man rocked his hips with their motions.

"You haven't done this before, have you?" he said. "With anybody, I mean."

Herbert struggled to shape words. "I have other priorities -" he whispered, but the retort lacked some of his previous venom. "Unlike you, I -"

"Forget it. I know you haven't. You're going to." Dan rubbed his body against Herbert's, finding it slippery with sweat, half from the heat and half from his own nearness. Dan's sudden hunger felt boiling and powerful, like the approaching storm, like it had just been waiting to break.

He kissed Herbert again, more deeply, and this time Herbert's hands came up to clutch his shoulders so tightly that it hurt. Dan wanted it to hurt. When they parted the next time, he heard Herbert say, "God, Dan!" in a broken, desperate voice. The thunder rolled harder, and now the sky did crack open, lightning parting the darkness, lighting up the front yard with an alien glow. Dan moved against Herbert's body, hoisting him up onto his tiptoes. He ground down and rubbed himself against him, feeling Herbert's jerky, uncoordinated response. The barrier of their clothes only intensified the friction. The next roll of thunder was close enough that the nearest windows rattled in their frames.

He adjusted his angle, feeling jolts of deep pleasure every time he slid his cock against that of his roommate. Herbert's hands were running up and down his arms and back now without stopping or slowing down. Dan grunted, slamming himself harder against him, fucking him through their pants. He didn't know which one of them was the more insane any longer. He sucked at Herbert's mouth again, trying to reach something hidden in the core of him, and Herbert sucked and kissed back, his lips sloppy and messy on Dan's own, his jaw, his face.

"You've never felt anything like this before in your life," Dan said, through gritted teeth. "Now you do. Now you want something more than you want to play God. You want to come."

Herbert gasped something that was very probably Dan's name, several times. He was shuddering uncontrollably. The first fat drops of rain began to fall, pelting the ground. Dan was so hot, and Herbert so hot against him, that he almost expected the water to hiss and steam where it hit their bodies.

He bowed his head and pressed his face against Herbert's, mouthing his temple; rolled his hips, working them together, trying to match Herbert's erratic rhythm. Just as he started to think that the other man was never going to get off, that he was incapable, Herbert suddenly thrust against him a few times, then went rigid, the low, almost painful sound he made bringing Dan right along for the ride, shooting into his boxers like a horny kid. He emptied himself utterly, sagging down over Herbert's body when he had, and feeling the way that Herbert shivered and bucked, his thighs trembling with tension.

Slowly, both of them sank to their knees. Herbert's knuckles were white and bloodless where he still gripped Dan's arm. Around them, the thunder rolled steadily, the curtain of rain plastering their already soaking clothes to them like a second skin. After some undetermined interval, Dan reached up and touched Herbert's face. There were raindrops clinging to his bangs, and his glasses were splattered with them. Dan thumbed the moisture from his chin, from his nose and cheeks.

"Come on," he said, "it's over."

Herbert was briefly silent. "I can't move, Dan," he said, after a moment. His voice was almost inaudible, lost in the dark.

"You can move." Dan was tired, inside and out, and his muscles complained as he stood, but he managed to haul Herbert to his feet. Then instead of releasing him straight away, he kissed him again, because Herbert was getting to him tonight in every way. The spark that jumped between them was like a miniature mimicry of the electricity still intermittently lighting up the undersides of the clouds, recharging parts of himself that he'd thought were laying dead with Meg.

"Come back inside," he said. "Take a shower. I'll clean up downstairs and go in after you."

"And then what?" Herbert said. He was still shivering, but partly with cold now.

"Go to bed. It'll be cooler now it's raining. We'll talk in the morning."

"I don't think we've got anything else to say to each other, Daniel."

"We've got plenty to say," Dan answered. He gave Herbert a little push, and his roommate walked ahead of him as they made their way slowly back into the house. There was something different about him in a way that Dan couldn't immediately put his finger on, and when he did, he was surprised to realize it was that Herbert for the first time looked vulnerable. It gave him a strange ache inside. Not exactly with loving him, the way he'd loved Meg - not yet - but more with wanting to fill the small but existent capacity someone has to _be_ loved.

He pulled the door closed behind them, wondering if he'd been crazy tonight; if the heat had finally succeeded in giving him some kind of brain damage. They'd have to talk tomorrow. They could talk for hours about the research, but this time it was going to be about the fact that Herbert, by his current level of definition at least, had just okayed losing his virginity to Dan. He debated whether he should say sorry for it, but decided that he wasn't. It was just one more thing that tied them together, he thought. There was no point in them _not_ doing this, in keeping each other physically at arm's length any more. He was in way too far with Herbert already.


End file.
